CVE-2015-5287 — Red Hat Automatic Bug Reporting Tool | CVSS 7.8 HIGH

HIGH

CVSS 7.8 HIGH  ·  EPSS 3%  ·  Red Hat Automatic Bug Reporting Tool

Severity Overview

Summary

The abrt-hook-ccpp help program in Automatic Bug Reporting Tool (ABRT) before 2.7.1 allows local users with certain permissions to gain privileges via a symlink attack on a file with a predictable name, as demonstrated by /var/tmp/abrt/abrt-hax-coredump or /var/spool/abrt/abrt-hax-coredump.

What the Attack Looks Like

If successfully exploited: A successful exploit grants the attacker elevated privileges on the target system — typically administrator or root — enabling full control of the affected host. Full confidentiality and integrity impact means an attacker can both read and modify sensitive data — useful for credential harvesting, data theft, or manipulating application state. High availability impact means the vulnerability can also cause a denial of service, which may be used for disruption or as a diversion during a broader attack.

Analyst Takeaway

The attack is launched by an attacker with local access to the target system and low-privileged credentials are required. This vulnerability is already in CISA KEV, which means exploitation has been confirmed in the wild — treat this as active risk, not theoretical exposure. The mapping indicates possible privilege escalation behavior, so local admin and kernel-level activity should be reviewed if compromise is suspected. In parallel with patching, defenders should review external exposure, hunt for signs of exploitation, and validate whether compensating controls are in place for vulnerable assets.

MITRE ATT&CK Mapping

• T1068 – Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
  Rationale: The vulnerability context indicates local or kernel-level privilege escalation behavior.

Detection Guidance

• T1068 — Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
  • Monitor for unexpected privilege changes, token manipulation, or process execution under SYSTEM or root that is not consistent with your baseline.
  • Review service creation (Event ID 7045), scheduled task creation (Event ID 4698), and kernel driver load events for unexpected entries.
  • Inspect EDR kernel-level alerts and OS-level memory protection violations associated with the vulnerable host or process.

Hunting Considerations

These are proactive hunts mapped to the ATT&CK techniques identified for this CVE. Run them now — do not wait for an alert to fire.

• T1068 — Exploitation for Privilege Escalation
  • Privilege assignment events (Windows): Search for Event ID 4672 (Special Privileges Assigned to New Logon) for accounts that should not hold elevated rights. Correlate with Event ID 4688 (process creation) to see what ran immediately after the privilege was granted.
  • Unexpected SYSTEM/root processes: Hunt for processes running as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM or root that are not part of your baseline — particularly interactive shells (cmd.exe, PowerShell, bash) or network utilities running at that privilege level.
  • Service and driver installation (Windows): Event ID 7045 (new service installed) and kernel driver load events are key. Privilege escalation exploits frequently install a service or load a driver as the escalation mechanism — any unexpected entry here warrants investigation.
  • Linux-specific indicators: Search auditd for unexpected setuid/setgid executions, sudo invocations by users outside your admin group, and privilege-change syscalls (setuid, setreuid, setresuid) from non-root processes.
  • Token manipulation (Windows): Sysmon Event 10 (process access) targeting lsass.exe or other high-privilege processes often precedes or accompanies privilege escalation. Unusual OpenProcess calls against security processes are a strong signal.

Recommended Actions

Immediate (0–24 Hours)

• Inventory: Identify all systems running Red Hat Automatic Bug Reporting Tool. Include production, staging, dev, and cloud environments — untracked instances are the most likely to remain unpatched.
• Review local access scope: This vulnerability requires local access — assess which users or processes have local access to affected systems and whether that access could be reached from a compromised adjacent host.

Remediation

• Apply the vendor patch: Apply mitigations in accordance with vendor instructions, ensuring compliance with CISA’s BOD 26-04 Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk (see URL in Notes) guidance and CISA’s “Forensics Triage Requirements” (see URL in Notes). Follow applicable BOD 26-04 guidance for cloud services or discontinue use of the product if mitigations are unavailable. Stakeholders are responsible for evaluating each asset's internet exposure and ensuring adherence to BOD 26-04 patching guidelines.
• CISA directive deadline: 2026-09-09 — this is the mandatory deadline for US federal civilian agencies under BOD 22-01. All organizations should treat this date as a strong target regardless of federal mandate.
• Verify remediation: After patching, confirm the correct version is installed on all affected hosts. Run a vulnerability scan or use your asset management tooling to verify — do not rely solely on change tickets.
• Post-patch compromise assessment: Privilege escalation and lateral movement techniques can result in persistent access that survives patching. After remediation, review the hunting considerations in this alert to assess whether compromise occurred before the patch was applied.

Detection Coverage

• Verify ATT&CK coverage: Confirm your SIEM and EDR have detection logic in place for T1068. Review the Detection Guidance and Hunting Considerations sections of this alert for the specific log sources and behavioral patterns to monitor.
• Threat intelligence feeds: Monitor your TI feeds and vendor advisory channels for published indicators of compromise (IOCs), proof-of-concept exploit releases, or active campaign reporting associated with this CVE — these should trigger an immediate hunt even if no internal alerts have fired.

Detection Playbooks

Vulnerability Details

Additional Notes

This vulnerability affects an open-source component, third-party library, protocol, or proprietary implementation that could be used by different products. For more information, please see: https://github.com/abrt/abrt/commit/3c1b60cfa62d39e5fff5a53a5bc53dae189e740e ; BOD 26-04: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/bod-26-04-prioritizing-security-updates-based-risk ; Forensics Triage Requirements: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/directives/bod-26-04-implementation-guidance-prioritizing-security-updates-based-risk ; https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-5287